SUBSCRIBE:

Twenty-seven employees fired from state TV in Paraguay

Share

(RSF/IFEX) - 5 September 2012 - Twenty-seven journalists, technicians and other employees of state-owned TV Pública were denied entry to the TV station's Asunción headquarters yesterday on the grounds that they "cannot continue" to work for the station.

Some had heard talk on 31 August of a new wave of dismissals, but none was notified in advance. During a “Micrófono Abierto” (Open Microphone) broadcast on the evening of 22 June, most of them expressed opposition to Fernando Lugo's removal as president in a parliamentary vote earlier that day. And most of them had been subject to frequent suspensions since then.

"An initial purge within the state-owned media created by President Lugo occurred three weeks after the parliamentary 'coup' against him," Reporters Without Borders said. "In view of the fait accompli methods used yesterday, we cannot believe the bureaucratic explanation offered by the government's information department."

"The dismissal of 27 journalists in violation of the most elementary rules of the right to work is unfortunately just prolonging the witch-hunt that began after the president's removal in June. This serious attack on pluralism will accentuate the divisions within this unhappy and isolated country. We are ready to support the purged journalists when they take this case to the courts."

Information minister Martín Sannemann blamed the mass dismissals on the fact that an agreement under which the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) provided TV Pública with the funds to cover their salaries had expired on 31 August.

The minister's explanation was "false", the journalists said, pointing out that TV Pública signed an agreement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) before the supplementary one with the OIE, and that TV Pública's previous management obtained a total of 10 billion guaranis (2 millions euros) for salaries, more than enough to keep paying them.

The journalists are all the more angry because, during a meeting on 15 August, Sannemann had promised that there would be no dismissals, just some delay in paying salaries.
Former project manager Jazmín Acuña, one of those who have been dismissed, said: "Many of them learned that they had been fired when they arrived at work this morning. The security guard had a list of people who were to be denied entry."

Another of the purge victims, journalist and producer Manuel Cuenca, said: "This blacklist clearly constitutes ideological persecution against journalists who were recruited by the Lugo administration. It is one of the arbitrary moves that Federico Franco's putschist regime has made against freedom of expression."

There has been a series of disturbing developments for freedom of information ever since Lugo's ouster in June, while impunity continues to be a problem. One of the latest examples is the March 2011 murder of Merardo Romero, the head of programming at community radio station La Voz de Ytakyry. The judicial authorities have treated the presumed instigators with an outrageous degree of indulgence.

More from Paraguay

The access to information law that took effect in September 2015 facilitated journalistic investigations into several corruption scandals, including widespread misuse of funds at the National University of Asunción.

"In 2012, journalists investigating corruption and organized crime or who were vocally critical of the government suffered threats and violent attacks by drug cartels, government officials, and the EPP"

More from Censorship

After already cracking down on freedom of information in recent years, President Erdoğan has taken advantage of the abortive coup d’état and the state of emergency in effect since 20 July to silence many more of his media critics, not only Gülen movement media and journalists but also, to a lesser extent, Kurdish, secularist and left-wing media.

This publication presents the findings of the media development assessment in Mongolia that began in 2012 to determine the state of the media in the country. The assessment was based on the UNESCO/IPDC Media Development Indicators (MDIs), an internationally recognized analytical tool used to provide detailed overviews of national media landscapes and related media development priorities.

Violence against journalists in Europe increased in the second quarter of 2016, reports submitted to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom platform show, as a government crackdown in Turkey intensified and protests turned violent in countries from France to Finland.

“After the initial optimism during the Euromaidan movement, many journalists have become disillusioned. They are faced with the triple challenge of the war in the Eastern part of the country, the economic crisis and the digitalization of mass media.”

An officer of the Myanmar army recently filed a criminal complaint against two journalists for allegedly sowing disunity among the military. Even though mediation by the Press Council caused the military to withdraw the case, this incident demonstrates how the military continues to throw its weight to get back at what it perceives as negative publicity.

In recent years, the space afforded to civil society to operate freely has been shrinking dramatically across the world, presenting a serious threat to democracy and human rights. Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) have been especially badly affected by this shrinking political space.

The report is a frank assessment of the recent regime of online censorship and mass surveillance against a backdrop of longstanding, serious abuses of the judicial process and attacks on freedom of expression by Turkish authorities.

The report surveys the rocky landscape for media and public discourse since the ruling military junta lifted the curtain on the southeast Asian nation in 2012 after five decades of isolation from the modern world.

Despite its Constitutional commitment to free speech, India’s legal system makes it surprisingly easy to silence others. Routine corruption, inefficiency, and the selective enforcement of vague and overbroad laws allow individuals, or small groups, to censor opinions they find distasteful. - See more at: http://www.pen-international.org/the-india-report-executive-summary-and-key-findings/#sthash.TIIM2xbu.dpuf

As Globe International Center (GIC) reported, from 2012-2014, violations against journalists and the media increased compared to previous years and journalists faced external threats and intervention in their professional work, different types of pressures, threats, censorship in distribution, demands to reveal their information sources, to question and give testimony in mass by law enforcement bodies, especially by the General Intelligence Agency, use of criminal defamation law by politicians and public bodies or public officials censoring the media.

As the election looms for later this year, incidents in 2014 and in early 2015 involving the press raises serious questions on the genuineness of media freedom in Burma. The situation is alarming as the state seems to have heaped all the faults and fines on the media in the past year, which has seen a media worker being killed in October on the pretext of national security. International assistance has poured into the country to develop the media aimed at lifting and sustaining the state of media freedom. However, a viable press freedom environment seems unlikely to materialise in Burma before the end of this administration.

The media in Tripura is still dependent on the government for financial help, giving them an unprecedented upper hand to control press freedom in the state. As long as the political party in power is satisfied, the media is deemed to be okay otherwise there is an incredible pressure on the journalists as they have to not only endure insults but also face demotion in rank as well as being refused accreditation. - See more at: https://samsn.ifj.org/media-in-north-eastern-state-of-tripura/#sthash.0GypROMb.dpuf

There are far too many countries where news and content providers constantly face a very special and formidable form of censorship, one exercised in the name of religion or even God. And with increasing frequency, this desire to thwart freedom of information invokes the hard-to-define and very subjective concept of the "feelings of believers."

From August 28 to October 15, 2014, PEN American Center carried out an international survey of writers1 , to investigate how government surveillance influences their thinking, research, and writing, as well as their views of government surveillance by the U.S. and its impact around the world.

Global press freedom has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade, according to the latest edition of Freedom House's press freedom survey. The decline was driven in part by major regression in several Middle Eastern states, including Egypt, Libya, and Jordan; marked setbacks in Turkey, Ukraine, and a number of countries in East Africa; and deterioration in the relatively open media environment of the United States.

Political intolerance, activities of fundamentalists and drug trafficking groups, government impunity, and the continued existence and application of repressive speech laws, continue to limit FoE rights in many countries of the region.

The 100-page report shows that Tibetan refugee communities in Nepal are now facing a de facto ban on political protests, sharp restrictions on public activities promoting Tibetan culture and religion, and routine abuses by Nepali security forces.

IFEX publishes original and member-produced free expression news and reports. Some member content has been edited by IFEX. We invite you to contact [email protected] to request permission to reproduce or republish in whole or in part content from this site.